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Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Mad About Macarons with Jill Colonna

Remember how thrilled BEAR was when Mad About Macaronsarrived in the mail? Yesterday we met up with author Jill Colonna at her favorite pastry supply shop, Mora- 13, rue Montmartre 75001 To get the scoop on all her fav pastry tools for making macarons!! Jill's favorite bowl scraper (about 1 euro). More expensive, but this metal scraper will remove your cooled macarons (after 10 minutes) with one wisk of the hand - voila! Jill likes the Flexipan molds for baking.

Over the plastic kind.

Nozzle #9 is perfect for making macarons - I bought one too.

Jill uses Exopat parchment paper to line her baking pans, not Silpats.*And only bake ONE pan of macarons in the oven at a time!

*PLEASE TAKE NOTE future macaron makers!

You need a proper pastry scaleif you want to make proper pastry. All the pros everywhere use them. The measurements in grams in the book are universal. Every pastry chef worth his/her salt has a scale to get the exact quantities correct. C'est comme ca. Making pastry is chemistry and not a casual handful of this or that.

Another thing Jill pointed out - is get to know your oven.

An oven thermometer is the best way. Macarons can be fickle - much depends on your oven.

Another lecon. Jill does NOTuse a Kitchen Aide to beat her egg whites.Simply a Moulinex hand-held electric whisk.

So we can all get down and start making macarons, myself and BEAR included!

Here's a sneak peak inside Jill's shopping basket.

Jill could not be more adorable or accessable or generous with her secrets. Do visit her new blog, Le Blog. And for heaven's sake get her book!

BEAR is thrilled at the prospect of actually making some macarons of his own.Plus Jill has promised a follow-up lecon next trip if we do our macaron homework.

We were both smitten with Jill's bag from Lupo by the way.

The outside of Mora FYI - they couldn't have been nicer or more helpful and the prices are less than across the street at Bovida...hmph

31 comments:

After two years of reading (and drooling) over your macaron photos and artworks, a Swiss bakery 15 miles away from my home finally started selling macarons! Of course, I drove right over to buy some today, since it was "Jour du Macaron."

I was surprised at the size of the macarons from the Swiss bakery. Each one was approximately 1 1/4-inches in diameter. Is this the standard size? They seem larger in the photos and videos I have seen online, but perhaps my perspective is off.

Jill looks like a great person - it looks like you guys had fun together!I enjoyed the whole post until you got to the part about the oven. You have to cook these things?! Good grief!(Nozzle # 9 has potential as a song title.)

I had such a good time yesterday with you and I also got to meet Bear. Thank you for sharing the fun!

Just so no confusion (since I was rambling a bit, must be my Scottish accent), I don't use any fancy parchment paper for macs (exopat or silpat) but just simple baking parchment paper (greaseproof paper) that you can easily find in supermarkets...I can't wait to see you again soon in Paris.Jill x

Fantastique! post. YOu Carol are guilty of turning me on to macarons in my severely macaron deprived environment. So deprived in fact that my first trip to a place that had macarons: London, I got the variety pack from Paul's and found it hard to share. My own attempts have be sad but promising and now armed with Ms. Colonna's insider wisdom I will try, try again. Also, she seems a delight. What a nice surprise it is to find someone so invested in their "art" that they take joy in sharing it..I am sure it was a fun day for you both...thanks for sharing.

Just wanted to share a tiny bit of link love with Paris Breakfasts since I tasted my first macarons earlier this week. Delicious! Your post highlighting your shopping outting with the author of "Mad About Macarons" was the deciding factor for which Macaron book to buy. It was a great post (as are all of your posts)!

Hi Melissa,Hope you don't mind me answering via a comment here since you ask about molds.No molds are needed for making macarons. Just pipe them: that easy. They become more uniform the more you practise. The molds are for cakes, brioches, quiches etc. for the times I don't eat macarons... ;-)

Wonderful post! I just purchased Jill's book and I can't wait to get started baking macarons.Do you know anywhere in the US to purchase molds? I'm a little (okay, a lot!) intimidated to make these.xoxo, B

ParisBreakfast Letters

♥carol gillott♥

l'Ile Saint Louis, Paris, Ile de France, France

Hi I'm Carol Gillott,
My Mom taught me watercolors at 5. I'm still at it, now tripping over cobblestones, living in a 6th-floor garret on l'Ile Saint-Louis, Paris. Savor Parisbreakfast with a hot chocolate and croissant.
I paint Paris dreams.